Letters to a Corpse
by mrspetervincent
Summary: Kurt died in the twin towers, and Blaine's shrink thinks writing a letter to Kurt might help him get some closure. AU in which Blaine was a fire fighter and Kurt was a stock broker in September of 2001. M just in case, no smut or anything like that.


_A/N: Warnings for violence, character death and 9/11 (that's not really a warning, but I know a lot of people are triggered by it)._

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><p>Dear Kurt,<p>

Hi. How are you? How's heaven, I guess? This is ridiculous. I don't know why I'm asking questions. I don't even know why I'm writing this in the first place. It's not like I'm going to get any answers at any point. You're dead. I've accepted that fact. I, along with many others, had a loved one who worked as a stock broker in the twin towers. It may not have been your dream job, but you agreed that because of the kids, Mason and Madison, who were then four- and six-year-olds, you would need a job too to get by. On my part, being a volunteer fire fighter may have been good for the "glory of it all," but it wasn't very high-paying. Damnit, I should've told you not to get the job. You might have been on Broadway by now, if I hadn't let you go to work that day. I tried to make you stay home, too, told you to take a sick day, but you insisted on working.

Sometimes, in a futile attempt to cheer myself up, I pretend all the mourners are mourning just you, and no one else. Like there were no other casualties or deaths, because honestly, even though there were hundreds more, yours is the only death that matters to me.

And you might be wondering why I'm writing this. (Even though you won't see it, because as was aforementioned, you're dead and corpses can't read letters.) My therapist told me it would be good for me, that maybe since I'm not "opening up" to _her,_ I might "open up" to _you._ I think it's kind of bullshit, but hey. Why not?

She said I should talk about that day and "how it makes me feel." God, she's such a stereotypical therapist. She asks me how I'm feeling, I say a couple words that basically always translate to "I feel like shit," and she'll nod a little and say, "And how does that make you _feel_?"

You want to know how it makes me feel, that my husband and the love of my life is dead and I could've possibly prevented it? It makes me feel sad, initially, then I get angry, maybe go all Finn Hudson on a couple chairs and kick them over, and then I just feel numb. I don't feel anything. I sit at home, maybe watch some TV, and maybe take refuge in my blankets with a jar of chocolate icing. Since that day, since eleven years ago on the eleventh of September, I still haven't been able to a), ride in an airplane or b), go higher than the 5th story of a building without having a panic attack. (Once I get up to the 3rd floor, I start getting sweaty.)

I know you would disapprove of it, but I partially blame myself for that day. I mean, I was Blaine Anderson, bravest volunteer firefighter in all of New York, Mr. "Who Gives A Shit If He's A Fruit, That Kid Was A Born Life Saver." But now, the only way to describe me is as "a wreck." I tried to keep volunteering afterwards, but it's kind of hard to put out a fire when you burst into a fit of sobs and then faint at the sight of another crumbling building.

I have nightmares every night, of that day, of the eleventh of September. They say the more you remember somethhing, the more foggy the memory gets. With this, it's the opposite. It's painstakingly vivid, the dreams when I relive it; dreams of dark smoke in the air, clogging my respiratory system and stinging my eyes. I had scrambled up the stairs frantically, trying to get to your floor, running higher and higher, desperate to see the numbers "5-1" on the wall indicating I was on the fifty-first floor where you worked. At that point, according to what little I could see, I was on the fourty-seventh. Four more floors. I could run for four more floors with all my equipment on, right?

Apparently, I was wrong. I was panting and sweating profusely, my muscles and joints screaming at me to take a break, and I knew my attempt to rescue you was hopeless. I tried just walking up the stairs instead of the sprinting I was doing originally, and even crawling at one point, until it was a battle to get air into my lungs - a battle I was losing. Eventually, once the smoke was so dense I couldn't see two feet ahead of me, someone had to carry me down, but with my last bits of energy I kicked and screamed in his arms like a toddler having a tantrum, trying to get him to either put me down or go up and bring me to you. If you were going to die, I wanted to die with you, because I couldn't imagine even _trying_to live without you. Life seemed pointless if I couldn't wake up and look into those beautiful blue eyes - no, _glasz__, _according to you, they were _glasz _- and kiss those perfectly soft pink lips, I didn't want to wake up at all.

After what seemed like a lifetime of thrashing and trying to break free, I gave up and settled for the seemingly simple task of screaming your name. I wasn't going to save you myself, I had to accept that. But I hoped that maybe someone else had gotten to you already. Maybe I hadn't needed to freak out at all. Maybe you were already safely on the ground outside, waiting for me to get out. Maybe I'd be able to see you again, to put my arms around you again, to kiss you again, to make love to you again. I forced myself to see the tiny glimmer of light in an otherwise hopeless situation. When I was finally placed on the ground in the sunlight, and didn't see your perfectly coiffed hair in the large crowd around me, and heard the screams and felt the ground shake beneath me as the second plane hit into the second building, the building you were in, I knew all hope was gone.

You hadn't gotten out in time.

You were dead.

The next hour or so afterwards was sort of a blur. I remember arms restricting me, holding me back, keeping me from running to you. I remember a far away scream. A blood-curdling one, someone shreiking "Kurt." Then the realization that oh, that's me, I'm the one screaming your name. Screaming it until my voice gave out and all I could do was watch the building fall to the ground before me. Other than the faint feeling of wetness on my face, oh right, tears, and something vice-like around my arms, the guy from my squad, dragging me back and shoving me into the truck. The building was burning right in front of me, and you were in it, you were burning in those ashes, you were dead, oh my god, my Kurt was dead.

I could've climbed those four more flights of stairs, I could've willed myself to do it, I could've saved you, why didn't I save you? I would give everything, literally give up my every possession just to hold you one more time and tell you I love you. Because I do, I still do and I always will and _god fucking damnit _I miss you. You said you'd never say goodbye to me. You told me you were proud of me, which no one had ever told me before. You told me I took your breath away, and then, in a morbidly ironic way, I actually did.

And now, after a decade of chronic depression, I'm a thirty-seven-year-old bachelor that will probably stay that way for the rest of my life. I live alone; our kids, Mason and Madison, live with their Uncle Finn and Aunt Rachel. Considering my "battle with the bottle," as your sister-in-law so kindly calls my drinking problem, they were willing to help and took Mason and Madison in at the ages of 6 and 8. Now, they're 15 and 17. Our kids are teenagers. Madison's almost an adult. I haven't seen either of them in person for 5 years. They must be so proud of their fuck-up of a father, huh?

I tried dating after you left. Nick and Jeff said it would be good for me to find someone else and "get over you," as if that could actually happen. The only guys I dated, though, only appealed to me because something about them reminded me of you in some way; one guy because his name was Curt, one guy because he had your eyes and fashion sense, and one other guy who gelled his hair the same way. None of them lasted. None of them were you.

So, yeah. I'm perpetually single. Unless you count the relationship I'm in with my right hand, but that's purely physical.

The sad thing is, even after all these years, I can still picture how you'd react to that joke. You'd roll your perfect eyes that look like miniature galaxies and laugh your perfect laugh that sounds like tinkling bells and it would make me love you impossibly more.

Sometimes, I hate how much I love you. But then I realize that I'm never going to _stop_ loving you, so any attempt I or Finn or my shrink or any of the friends that I used to have but blew off make to get me over you is basically pointless. I said I'd love you for the rest of my life. That includes the years that you're not in it.

Yours always,

Blaine Anderson-Hummel


End file.
